Fairy Paint
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: After a case in New Haven, Leah is having a bad day and she and Spencer find an unconventional way to deal with it.


March 2, 2012

His wife wasn't having a good day, Spencer could tell. Leah glared at the computer, which apparently wasn't cooperating even in her talented hands, cussing colorfully in Italian, perfectly aware that no one in the New Haven County PD could understand a word she was saying. Except of course for Spencer and her mother, Emily Prentiss.

This case had been hard for her simply because of where it was.

Emily looked at Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, also her boyfriend and Leah's surrogate father, and nodded toward Leah then the door. She was telling Hotch to tell her daughter to take a few.

"Leah, the rest of the team can get everything together, why don't you and Reid go sightseeing. This is where you went to school." It was an unseasonably warm day.

"Thanks, Boss." Leah stood up, grinning as she said it.

Life on cases had become a rather intricate gave of hiding and acting, between Hotch and Emily dating, JJ and Curtis, the team's stand in tech, dating, Leah and Hotch's father-daughter relationship, and, most difficult of all was for Spencer, hiding the fact that he and Leah were married. To his knowledge no one on the team but Derek Morgan even knew about that.

"Come on, Reid." He was never Reid to her unless they were on cases.

Leah slid into the driver's seat of the SUV and drove them to a sub restaurant. She ordered two sandwiches to go, confusing Spencer.

"Where are we going?" he finally asked.

"The only thing I care to see again in this place in Haven Hill." Leah answered.

He remembered that place. They'd gone there a lot when Leah had been in college. It had been their, well, haven. He still had a photo in his wallet that had been taken there.

It was a self-taken portrait from when Leah was thirteen. Leah had jumped on his back, piggy-back style, and they had grinned up at the camera. That had been a great day.

When they reached the top of the hill, Leah flopped onto the ground with their sandwiches, handing him his. After a moment of eating in companionable silence, she said, "We're going to have to tell them soon, you know."

Spencer sighed. He did know. They'd been very careful not to spill their secret to anyone on the team, but what they hadn't counted on was Leah getting pregnant, with multiples. It was almost to the point of showing, and there was no way Spencer was going to let Hotch or Emily think he'd done anything inappropriate with "their" daughter.

So they had to tell. Very soon.

"I was thinking I could invite the team over for dinner tomorrow, plus Papa John."

Leah's biological dad, John Cooley.

"Why Dr. Cooley? He all ready knows."

"I want someone there who's not going to try to kill us."

"They're not going to kill us."

Leah glared at him. "They know how to murder with a glance, and if I know that then you certainly do."

"All right. Tomorrow night."

She nodded. It was decided.

They ate in silence for another minute before Spencer said, "Do you ever wish we could be normal?"

"There's no such thing."

"See, that's just it. That we weren't so smart, so factual. That we didn't look at the leaves changing color and think of chlorophyll, that maybe we could, even for a moment, pretend it was, I don't know…"

"Fairy paint?" Leah volunteered.

"Yeah."

"Let's do it."

"Do what?"

"Pretend it's fairy paint and such. What's the pollen?"

"Pollen is pollen."

She looked at him in exasperation.

"Oh, I get it. It's… gold dust." He said, non-committal.

"Fallen from the pavement of heaven."

Spencer shrugged. She was enjoying this. "If that's what you want it to be."

"What about the dandelions?"

"Their weeds."

She huffed at him and stood up, pulling him up with her.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"To get you to see the fairy paint."

And so they traipsed across town in search of the imaginary, like children again. It was nice to put their worries away for a little while, Spencer had to admit. There were so many of them. And the gruesome cases, too.

Later, back at Quantico, Curtis met the team with his son, Danny, and Henry, JJ's son and Spencer's godson. The boys were playing in the leaves in front of the BAU when the team came over. Henry dove to give Mommy a hug, and Spencer was second.

"We was playing with the leaves." Henry told Spencer enthusiastically, holding one up to prove his point.

Spencer knelt down to the tow-headed boy's level. "So I see. Hey, do you see the way the leaf is two different colors?"

The boy nodded. He liked to hear what Uncle Spence had to say about the world.

"That's fairy paint."

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><p><strong>Please reveiw! Okay, I realize I have some people miffed at me at the moment because of how I handled my recent poll, so I want to apologize for that. I did intend to use it, but as I got to looking into the later storyline, I couldn't figure out a way to do that and work it all out the way it's supposed to go. So, again, sorry. <strong>**My next story is going to be called "Confirmation ". Please check out my new poll, which I fully intend to pay attention to this time.**


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